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Guidance

Multi-academy trusts: establishing and developing your trust

How MATs can grow their trust, including using a trust partnership arrangement.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
9 December 2016
Last updated:
6 July 2023
Show all updates

  1. 'Building strong academy trusts: guidance for academy trusts and prospective converters' removed. Link to new guidance, ‘Commissioning high-quality trusts’, added.

  2. Updated section 2.4 of 'Trust partnerships: guidance for academy trusts and prospective joiners' to reflect the new trust and school improvement offer for the 2022 to 2023 academic year.

  3. Added a link to information on local authority-established multi academy trusts.

  4. Added an updated version of 'Trust partnerships: guidance for academy trusts and prospective joiners'.

  5. Updated 'building strong academy trusts: guidance for academy trusts and prospective converter' and 'Trust partnerships guidance'. Replaced the 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework' with a 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): assurance framework' and guidance on how to use this framework.

  6. Updated 'Building strong academy trusts'. Added 'Trust partnerships guidance' and 'Trust partnership service level agreement'. Removed 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): resources', 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): development programme resource' and Multi-academy trust (MAT): good practice guidance and expectations for growth'.

  7. Added updated MAT school improvement capacity framework.

  8. Added an updated version of the 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework'.

  9. Added 'Multi-acadamy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework'.

  10. Added 'MAT development programme: resource'.

  11. Added updated resources for multi-academy trusts.

  12. First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Trust partnerships: guidance for academy trusts and prospective joiners

PDF, 152 KB, 11 pages

Trust partnerships service level agreement

MS Word Document, 105 KB

Multi-academy trust (MAT): assurance framework

PDF, 212 KB, 15 pages

MAT assurance framework: how to use guide

PDF, 171 KB, 12 pages

Details

Trust partnerships guidance

This document:

  • explains what trust partnerships are and how they work
  • provides some examples of trusts and schools who have entered into a partnership

Trust partnership service level agreement

This is an example of the legal document required to formalise a trust partnership. It has been written for use by a multi-academy trust and school but can be adapted where needed.

MAT assurance framework

This is a voluntary tool to help academy trusts understand their most significant areas of strength and challenge.

Information to support local authorities interested in setting up a multi-academy trust is also available.

For information about DfE’s role in making academy trust commissioning decisions see Commissioning high-quality trusts.

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